Two Suspected Gift Authorship to LIU Baixiong (刘伯雄)
Recently, the 5GH Team finds two article [1-2] with questionable authorship, which is suspected to be gift authorship to LIU Baixiong (刘伯雄), a senior professor at Jiangxi University of Science and Technology.
LIU Baixiong was listed as the first author for both articles [1-2]. However, he is not the researcher who conducted the experiments or analyzed the data. His contributions were described as "writing" (for article [1-2]), "funding acquisition" (for article [1]) and "conceptualization" (for article [2]). Also, as the team leader, it is unlikely that he was the primary point of contact for the students. In China, it is typically the junior teachers, such as the lecturers, manage the students directly, provide guidance, analyze data with them, and help write the initial drafts. Senior teachers, like full professors, generally contribute to conceptualization, funding acquisition, and revise the manuscripts. In these cases [1-2], a lecturer, ZHAO Wenmin (赵文敏), was assigned as the corresponding author for both the articles. She is likely the teacher who provided the most significant assistance to the students in these studies. Therefore, Liu's role as the first author is questionable, as he neither conducted the experiments nor provided the primary support to the students.
What is more interesting, in article [2], LIU Baixiong was credited with writing the original draft, while ZHAO is credited with revising the manuscript. This arrangement goes against the typical research group culture in China.
The 5GH Team notices that LIU is not always to be listed as the first author on the articles from his group. In fact, these are the only two articles we found that LIU was listed as the first author after 2024. Therefore, it may not be the case that Liu is consistently taking the first author position from his students.
Reference
